In recent decades, various depth detection devices have been developed to represent the physical world in a three-dimensional (3D) fashion, such as time-of-flight (TOF) sensors, stereo cameras, laser scanners, and structured light devices. Depth detection devices typically measure the distance from the device to a target object, but their working principles vary. For example, a TOF sensor may measure depth by detecting a light wave phase shift after reflection, while a stereo camera may be used to generate a disparity map by stereo matching.
Depth data generated by these different types of devices can exhibit different data characteristics. In addition, the size of the depth data generated may impose significant transmission and storage costs. For instance, while image/video compression methods can, in the abstract, be used for some types of depth data compression, noise and instability associated with the depth data can make actual use of such image/video compression methods problematic.